Some books are written. Others are living. For Stuart J. Guey JR, the story behind Wildcats belongs firmly in the second category: a narrative decade in the making, drawn from real seasons, real loss, and a community’s extraordinary will to rise.
Stuart J. Guey JR: More Than a First-Time Author
Born in 1949 in Empire, Louisiana, Stuart J. Guey JR graduated from Buras High School in Plaquemines Parish in 1967. He went on to earn a Bachelor of Science from Southeastern Louisiana University before receiving his Doctor of Dental Surgery degree from Louisiana State University in 1975. He has practiced dentistry ever since, currently continuing his work on a semi-retired basis in Belle Chasse, Louisiana.
That’s a full life by any measure. But Stuart J. Guey JR has never been someone to stop at one thing. Throughout his life, he has remained deeply committed to public service and community involvement, serving five elected terms in local government and remaining active in civic organizations, including the Rotary Club of Belle Chasse, which he joined in 1977.
So what led a dentist, elected official, and community pillar to sit down and write a book? The answer is a story in itself.
The Inspiration Behind the Stuart J. Guey Book
For years, Stuart told the same stories at family gatherings and community events, stories about the 1966 Buras Wildcats football team, a group of young men who defied the odds during one of the most turbulent periods in Louisiana history. Friends and colleagues kept telling him the same thing: “You ought to write a book.”
He toyed with the idea for decades. Life kept intervening. But as he approached his eighth decade, something shifted. As he writes in the book’s preface, the clock becomes a real motivator. He turned to faith, asked for guidance, and found himself waking in the middle of the night to capture memories before they slipped away.
The result is Wildcats: The Story of the 1966 Buras High School Football Team, a tribute to teammates, coaches, and an entire community that refused to be broken.
A Story Rooted in Adversity
What makes the Stuart J. Guey Book resonate isn’t simply the football. It’s everything happening off the field. In 1966, the Buras community was reeling. Hurricane Betsy had left widespread destruction the year before, school integration was creating political chaos, and the team itself suffered the death of one of its players mid-season.
Yet the Wildcats won the state championship.
In the book’s introduction, fellow team member Roderick “Rod” Lincoln frames it perfectly: the 1966 season required effort, pain, and the kind of difficulty that shapes people for life. Stuart J. Guey JR lived that. And now, through careful research of old newspaper clippings, yearbooks, and the fragile corridors of memory, he has preserved it.
What Makes His Storytelling Unique
Stuart writes from the inside. He was the team’s quarterback, which means the Wildcats are neither a distant historical account nor a romanticized legend. It’s a first-person reckoning with what it meant to lead under pressure as a teenager, no less, while an entire community looked on.
He’s also refreshingly honest about the limitations of memory and the responsibility of history. His goal isn’t mythology. It’s truth: the relationships, the community bonds, the human texture of a season that deserved to be remembered properly.
Why Readers Are Connecting
The inspiration for the book comes from his experience as a member of the 1966 Buras High School football team, a formative season that shaped his understanding of resilience, teamwork, and character. That’s exactly what readers are responding to.
In an era of polished memoirs and manufactured sentiment, the Stuart J. Guey Book feels different. It’s personal without being self-indulgent. It’s historical without being dry. And at its core, it’s about something universal that communities survive because of the people willing to hold them together, even when everything is falling apart.
Stuart J. Guey JR: A Life Well Lived, A Story Well Told
Today, Stuart J. Guey JR and his wife, Valerie, an attorney, share six children, seventeen grandchildren, and six great-grandchildren. They reside in Belle Chasse, Louisiana, where family, community, and service remain central to their lives.
Wildcats is a first book, but it reads like the work of someone who has spent a lifetime paying attention. Stuart J. Guey JR didn’t set out to become an author. He set out to make sure a remarkable story, his story, his teammates’ story, his community’s story didn’t disappear into silence. On that front, he has succeeded.
